


and let me kiss you

by lettersfromnowhere



Series: Birthday Requests [2]
Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M, First Kiss, Zuko can't use furniture properly in any universe, birthday gift, fluff fluff fluff, which is literally about birthdays, zuki crumbs bc it's Han and I had to
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-04
Updated: 2020-11-04
Packaged: 2021-03-09 04:01:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,592
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27388369
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lettersfromnowhere/pseuds/lettersfromnowhere
Summary: Katara's turning eighteen, and Zuko has a plan. It's a good plan - too bad he has no idea how to put said plan into motion.(A birthday gift for @SouthernsRaiders.)
Relationships: Katara/Zuko (Avatar), Suki & Zuko (Avatar)
Series: Birthday Requests [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2003899
Kudos: 119





	and let me kiss you

**Author's Note:**

  * For [southernsraiders](https://archiveofourown.org/users/southernsraiders/gifts).



> I hate this. It's very ridiculous and I felt ridiculous writing it, but my love for Han, who requested this for her birthday, overcame my resistance. Happy birthday, darling.

Zuko finds himself forgetting more and more as the night wears on.

First, he forgets how to filter. That is how, exactly eleven minutes into Katara Nutaraq’s eighteenth birthday party, he finds himself unabashedly revealing to their mutual best friend that he intends to kiss her before the night is out or die trying.

This is an objectively terrible decision.

The moment he sheepishly admits to the crush that no one but Katara is still unaware of, it’s all anyone’s talking about. Suki slaps him on the back with a positively evil smirk and wishes him good luck, and he thinks that should be the end of it. But it’s _Suki,_ so it isn’t; before he knows it, Sokka’s coming over to threaten him, and Toph gets wind of his plans and proves herself to be a fount of unwanted advice. Katara, mercifully, is too distracted to notice her friends laughing behind their hands every time they catch Zuko staring at her from afar, but he realizes with dread that it’s only a matter of time. Dazed, he sits on the nearest piece of furniture he can find, which happens to be the arm of a couch.

  
He sits there, perched precariously with one leg slung over the side of the couch and the other tucked under him, for several painfully-awkward moments, regretting every decision he’s ever made. As is her custom, Suki is the first to notice, and she takes a seat on the couch – _correctly –_ next to him.

“So you’ve forgotten how to use furniture properly,” she notes, patting his shoulder in a very _oh-you-hopeless-mess_ fashion. “I’m convinced that you’re going to die before you get this out.”

“Wow. Thanks,” he says drily. “The vote of confidence really means the world to me.”

“Zuko, using sarcasm? Okay, nope, you’re not fine.” She grabs his hand and pulls him off of the couch, and he almost falls into an end table as he trips after her. A lamp teeters precariously on the table but it doesn’t tip, thankfully. “This is painful.”

“Suki, _no.”_ Zuko digs his heels in and tries to strain against Suki’s grip, but it doesn’t work, and he has no choice but to stumble after her. “You’re not going to-“

“You leave me with no choice!” she cackles, and he can tell that she’s enjoying this just a little bit too much. She maneuvers through the crowd, unconcerned about the fact that Zuko runs into another party guest almost everywhere he moves; if Katara hasn’t already caught him staring at her at least once, she definitely sees him approaching now.

Fantastic.

“ _Suki,_ I am _begging you,”_ Zuko pleads, “to let me do this on my own terms.”

“Your ‘terms’ suck, Zuko.” He can’t see her face, but he knows she’s rolling her eyes. “If I let you do that, you’d leave here all sulky because you didn’t make your move.”

“I was going to do it eventually!”

“I know you way too well to believe that, Zuko.” They reach the edge of the dance floor and she stops, taking both of his hands. Zuko won’t meet her eyes so he stares at their joined hands instead. “Look, you like her, and I know she likes you-“

“You _do?”_

“You _don’t?”_ Suki laughs. “Is there no end to how dense you can be?”

He narrows his eyes. “How are you so sure about that?”

“Because I have eyes, genius.” Suki squeezes his hands. “You’ve got this. See? She’s alone.” Zuko peers up through half-closed eyelids and across the dance floor; sure enough, Katara’s standing off to the side of the floor by herself, watching the dancers with a faraway smile. “So just go tell her how you feel!”

“Suki, I…I can’t.”

This is true, because, staring at her – a vision in a blue minidress, absentmindedly playing with her hair – he forgets another thing: respiration.

Watching Katara across a crowded room, Zuko suddenly feels _very_ short of breath.

“You can, Zuko.” Suki’s voice is softer now, so he’s all the more shocked when she drops his hands and gives him a shove towards the dance floor that almost sends him sprawling. “And I’m sorry, but I’m sick of watching you pine!”

Even though he’s nowhere near Katara yet, the entire dance floor seems to have noticed his near-trip, and he looks – _glares –_ back at Suki with a look of sheer, unadulterated betrayal. Even Katara seems to have noticed: her faraway look has been replaced by one of confused amusement as she turns to see what everyone’s looking at.

That is when Zuko realizes that he hasn’t moved an inch in two minutes, because apparently he’s forgotten how to walk, too.

He knows what he probably looks like, standing stock-still in front of an entire crowd with sheer, dumb panic written all over his face, and the realization that nothing he could say to Katara would be more embarrassing than this makes it a little easier to move. The dancers split almost perfectly down the middle as he walks through, sheepishly muttering apologies for interrupting them, and by the time he’s near Katara, the guests have left an empty pathway between the two of them. This is good: it means that he doesn’t have to elbow his way through a crowd of teenagers attempting to form yike trains with varying degrees of success in his haste to get to Katara.

But it is also not good at all, because _everyone_ is staring at him now.

“Zuko?” Katara calls over the music when he’s close enough to hear her. She takes a few steps forward, grabs his hand, and pulls him aside; the dancers, thankfully, resume their previously-scheduled programming of flailing and yike trains as soon as he’s off the floor. Katara, for her part, pulls him out onto the balcony of the room she’d booked for her party. “Are you okay?”

He nods, his heart pounding. “I’m okay.”

“You’ve been acting weird all night,” Katara observes, looking him up and down for any sign of what might be wrong with him. “Are you sure about that?”

“Yeah, I’m…I’m sure. I promise.”

“Then what did you want to talk to me about?”

She leans her elbow against the balcony’s railing, shifting her weight to the foot that stands nearer to the edge and crossing her other leg over it. Her free hand pushes a lock of hair that the wind blows forwards back out of her face, and she’s so unbelievably beautiful right now, bathed in the soft light of the sconces lining the balcony, that Zuko forgets how nervous he’s supposed to be right now and blurts out, “Ikindawannakissyou.”

“ _Huh?”_

_Then,_ of course, it sinks in, and Zuko’s eyes widen. “Nothing!” he yelps. “Forget I ever said that. Just…talking! Saying things,” he sputters, his face so red he’s pretty sure she can see his blush in the dark. “It really was nothing. Don’t-“

He doesn’t even see Katara shift onto the balls of her feet to lean forwards before she’s grabbing the collar of his shirt and pulling him down to press her lips to his.

“Uh. Um.” Zuko blinks rapidly, too taken aback to form coherent sentences, when she pulls back. “That…yeah. That.” 

Katara bites her lip sheepishly, crossing one arm over her middle and pushing a lock of hair behind her ear with the other. “I…take it that’s what you were saying?”

“Yeah.” Suddenly every word Zuko says feels Important. “That…that was what I was saying.” He scratches the back of his neck. “Um…happy birthday, Katara.”

This may not exactly have been what she wished for when she blew out the candle on the slightly ridiculous four-tiered red velvet cake they’d served earlier (Gran-Gran’s friends pulled out all the stops for that one), but the fact that _she_ had kissed _him_ is enough to make Zuko forget absolutely _everything_ else.

“Thank you,” she replies, shyly resting her hand flat against his chest. “I’ve been wanting to do that for a while now.”

If Zuko had been drinking anything, he would’ve choked on it; even though he isn’t, he almost chokes on air. “You _have?”_

She nods shyly. “I thought you knew that I liked you.”

“You _did?”_

“…Zuko, I just kissed you.” Katara raises her eyebrows. “Are you seriously asking me if I like you right now?”

“It’s better to be sure!” he protests, though, in hindsight, it was a pretty stupid thing to ask.

“Yes, idiot, I do,” she mutters, letting her forehead fall against his sternum. “Honestly, you are _impossibly_ dense.”

  
“Oh, um. That’s…good to know, ‘cause, I, you know.” He gingerly reaches up to stroke her hair and wonders how on earth he ever thought he was going to be able to kiss her when he can barely even manage this. “I…also like you. A lot.”

“Has anyone ever told you that you’re kinda hopeless?” Katara raises her eyes and her lips quirk up into a shy, soft smile.

“Yeah. A lot of people. Constantly.”

“I figured,” Katara murmurs, pressing her forehead to his. She’s a few inches shorter, and she has to stand on her toes to do it; instinctively, Zuko’s hands drift to the small of her back, steadying her. “But I happen to like that about you.”

This time, _he_ kisses _her,_ and he doesn’t even die.

The moment that he pulls away and realizes that he hasn’t gone up in flames on the spot is the proudest moment of his entire stupid existence.


End file.
